Hey Brad,
this sounds very interesting. I used expert networks such as GLG extensively when I did Due Dilligence work at Bain & Company. These networks charge you roughly $1000 for an hour of expert time and take a large chunk of it.
It looks like they are employing quite a manual process to find these experts (e.g. scraping Linkedin).
As a searcher I would pay ~[redacted]for an expert during a due dilligence. I would simply reach out to them personally without a network. If a network can match that price I would be happy to use it.
Best
John

I used GLG and AlphaSights in my time at Bain Capital and found them very helpful. The high price of ~$1,000 per hour was not a particularly significant deterrent given the size of the investments being evaluated. I assume searchers would like to use these networks for industry diligence but the current price point is likely a problem for most searchers.

I have used GLG as well as Guidepoint while in private equity and negotiated contacts with them. The issue one would have when using them as a searcher is that, in my experience, GLG and the major players sell contracts for 50+ calls over the course of a year. Another important restriction is minimum call time (typically an hour) so it’s not possible to get on the phone for just fifteen minutes and ask the most important questions. So even if one could stomach the $1,000 per hour it would be difficult for a searcher to use. Agree with John’s comment of attempting to find experts on LinkedIn. I’ve had more success with fellow school alumni who are willing to help.

I am am an expert on Alphasights and GLG and my current rate is $250 per hour. Most calls lasted a little over 1 hour. The process is smooth and they pay within a day or two. I believe both services found me from a LinkedIn search and white papers I had written on various subject matter.

I have used GLG, Guidepoint, and Marwood (healthcare-specific) extensively...at least 100 calls. I am also an expert on GLG, so have seen both sides of the fence. Happy to share my experience if you want to reach out.

I have used GLG and Apex Leaders. Very helpful services, and a price-competitive industry.

I used GLG at my prior firm (middle market PE) and it was a tremendously useful tool for the team to get up to speed on a new sector. While expensive, the cost is not material relative to the overall diligence costs of a typical middle-market deal, so I think the value proposition is strong for that target customer base. As others have noted, it's a different calculation for searchers, especially self-funded searchers.

I'm a co-founder in a technology platform working to make access to experts easier and more cost effective. Happy to have a phone call and discuss Brad.

Brad, I'd used AlphaSights (GLG competitor) when I worked for a 3 bil Pound corporation. I was in a $130 mil BU in a $600m division - and corporate paid for it. I found it to be excellent - they connected me with real top-notch people who could help 'crack the code' on tough-to-answer questions - due to the vantage points from which they'd seen things. Alphasights pinged me when they found out I'm searching for a business - but it was too expensive. Hundreds of dollars for each one-hour call. I suppose if one is trying to make a call on a complex topic and needs 2-3 conversations with experts, it'd be worth considering, even for a searcher.

I have experienced as a consultant. I received the payment and the companies I adivised always returned me positivr feedbacks on the decision they were to make.
The business model has a fragility: the advised company may directly contact the consultant.

I used GLG services as a consultant, and would use them as a searcher as well. The right knowledge/advice at the right time just saves you a lot of time. However, as a searcher, with less budget than a MBB consultant, it is key to have a good affordable option, GLG can be quite expensive

Luis makes a good point. Traditionally expert networks act as intermediary. My belief is this is unsustainable and long term the value is in connecting people to ensure better decisions.

My wife uses GLG frequently and those calls are usually very helpful for her work in corporate M&A. If I had access to that when I was searching that would have been very useful, though cost prohibitive. A good searcher should be able to use their network, or their own deal pipeline, to get informational calls for free. Time is the most precious resource, however, and in certain instances I could see rare exceptions being made such that the cost-benefit makes sense for a searcher. If the cost was reduced by 50% or more I could see it being a very valuable searcher tool.

^[redacted]‌ I've used expert networks/consultancies as both an expert and to do market research. In my experience as an expert on these networks, I've found that GLG takes a significant amount of time and effort to sign up/apply for an opportunity. Their platform is fairly mature, which has streamlined expert profile creation, project creation, expert surveys, interviews, and expert/project matching. As an expert, I believe the core benefit of GLG is that opportunities are sent to me as an expert and I can pick which one I take. However, the cost/benefit can be unbalanced since applying to those opportunities can be time consuming, even though I will ultimately be compensated for my time.

I've also used consultancies to help do research (McKinsey) and have done several expert calls with others (LEK). As an expert, the core benefit of a purely consultative approach is there is virtually no effort for me to accept and be interviewed, and ultimately compensated for my time. So the cost/benefit is skewed in my favor. As a director using these consultancies to do market research, I find consultancies find the best experts and are very high touch, but at a much higher cost.

Ultimately, these expert networks adhere to marketplace dynamics as their core value prop is efficiently matching expert supply to project demand. If the opportunity you are looking at (or you) can reduce barriers to entry for experts and/or reduce cost for projects, then you might have something compelling.

On one count, I am a GLG resource who has taken a number of calls through that platform. More pertinently, my firm (I am a co-founder/partner) offers an expert network - primarily comprise of alumni (both school and corporate) that we provide to our clients in multiple forms. Note that it is not a tech-enabled, client-searchable platform. In one format, we leverage our expert network to create "expert panels" for each diligence or strategy assignment where the client hires us to do a discrete piece of work in a particular sector or niche. Our internal analyst teams conduct interviews of experts on the panel (sometimes we have the client sit in on these) and the outputs are packaged into our reports to the client. Conversely, if the client has its own resources (perhaps an operations team, operating partners, or the investment partners themselves) who will do the main body of work but simply need a few hours of subject matter expertise, we, like GLG, Coleman, or others, can provide SMEs from our network on an hourly basis for calls and/or site visits and other constructs. Our pricing for both formats compensates our experts - who are not exclusive - at market rates but charges them to clients at rates that are typically significantly less than the GLG types. We have even sometimes priced work to accommodate the needs of independent sponsors who for the most part could never afford name brand firms with our capabilities. Moreover, there is no need for an annual contract. Certainly anyone can use their own LinkedIn or other social media to find experts, but the affinities we possess allow us to have a highly responsive pool and to assemble very specific niche expertise quickly. In fact, some large and well-known PE groups have turned to us to deliver assignments stating that they "asked the name brand consultancies - Bain, BCG, McKinsey, LEK - for help, but they could not deliver expertise in [niche]". Usually, we can assemble a team and expert panel within 48 hours. Even when asked to simply supply experts for a few calls or a site visit, we are almost always able to supply top notch, CxO/Board level talent with precise expertise at an untouchable price relative to GLG, etc.

I have been on both sides of the equation with some of the “traditional” expert networks. GLG might be the oldest one out there. What I have found to be even more effective, again on both sides of the table, is a more recent company called Catalant (gocatalant.com), which connects consultants to companies for slightly longer engagements. The resources there are top-notch, and they can be much more affordable over time than the expert networks.

I worked with them as an expert where I mostly got requests on Martech/HealthTech/AI and most of them were in the form of paid surveys. This was when i was a Lead Data Scientist working in Silicon Valley in high potential startups.

The paid consultation sessions did not come to me in those few months I was active, so I lost interest in them.

I think searchers would be a niche market. Hedge funds and traditional private equity funds are the big markets. GLG is obscenely priced, so there is room for disruption in this space. I've had good experience with a group called Mosaic in the past. Tegus is another trying to offer expert network services for cheaper.

Brad - I've had experience with AlphaSights and GLG in my 'big company' days. While my employer spent ~$1,000 for each one-hour session, the experts who I interviewed, helped 'crack the code' quickly - as they were JUST the right people who had an inside view of the issue. The expert network person in the middle - if technology could make them less involved and the pricing came down to $500/hr, for example - that's strengthen the value prop. Perhaps still too expensive for searchers except when about to make a momentous decision on a deal. But for sure such a business would take share from the $1,000 an hour companies - as long as they found very high-quality 'experts', too.

I think access to networks is easy enough, but as everyone points out it's the pricetag. If there's an easier/tech-enabled way to answer the most important question or two with a few responses to take out bias vs a 45+ minute call, that could be interesting. That said, I think people are using this and other platforms to try to get expert advice without paying anything.

quite expensive, cold calling isn't bad either